How Secondhand Smoke Affects Cancer Survivors: Woman Sues Neighbors For Smoking

Secondhand smoke has forced a cancer survivor to sue her neighbors and the management of her condo in Farmington Hills, Michigan.

Phyllis Davis, who lives in Echo Valley Condos, filed a complaint last week, saying her neighbors' smoking habit was subjecting her to secondhand smoke and making her ill.

In her complaint July 31 against Echo Valley Condominium Association, its property management company Casa Bella and the two owners of unit 115 of the building, Phyllis Davis said she "couldn't breathe because of her neighbors."

According to the complaint, Davis' building has four condos, which share hallways, a basement and a ventilation system.

Two of her neighbors, who stay as renters in a connected unit, smoke cigarettes and other substances, the smoke of which travels through the shared ventilation to reach Davis' condo, the complaint said.

Despite repeated complaints to the association, the management company and the owners of the unit for a year, no action was taken against the smokers.

"At the end of the day, all she wants is to breathe in her home comfortably," Fox 2 reported quoting attorney Alan Gocha. Gocha added: "It seems that no one seems to care what's happened to her because it doesn't affect them."

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The board of the condo association refused to comment due to the pending litigation, WXYZ-Detroit, an ABC-affiliate, reported.

Breathing secondhand smoke or passive/involuntary smoking is as harmful as smoking. Tobacco smoke has many harmful substances including benzopyrene, lead, carbon monoxide, arsenic, ammonia, formaldehyde, and a certain type of cyanide. Many of these substances are cancer-causing, and go from the air into the lungs and bloodstream, according to cancer.net.

Exposure to secondhand smoke is harmful, even if you are exposed to small levels, according to the Office of the Surgeon General. The office has estimated that if you are living with a smoker, there was a 20 to 30 percent chance of getting lung cancer. Researches have also revealed that secondhand smoke exposure may increase the risk of some other cancers by at least 30 percent, cancer.net reported.

There are evidences that link secondhand smoking in adults to cancers of the larynx, pharynx, nasal sinuses, brain, bladder, rectum, stomach, and breast, according to the American Cancer Society website.

Secondhand smoking was possibly linked in children to lymphoma, leukemia, liver cancer and brain tumor.

Cancer survivors' exposure to secondhand smoke can pose a hindrance in their full recovery and increases risk of stroke and heart attack, said Dr. Oladimeji Akinboro, chief medical resident at Montefiore New Rochelle Hospital and author of a recent study on the effects of secondhand smoke on cancer survivors.

The study on nearly 700 nonsmoking adult cancer survivors found 15.7 percent reporting exposure to secondhand smoke in 2011-2012, down from nearly 40 percent in 1999-2000.

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But the study also said those with a history of smoking-related cancer had higher rates of exposure to secondhand smoke than those with history of nonsmoking cancer.

"This is concerning because those who have had or have cancer represent a group of people whose health outcomes are adversely influenced by any form of tobacco exposure," Akinboro said.